BLOOMINGTON – In March, Tom Ostrom had two promising opportunities in front of him, and one former boss fully supportive of either.

A longtime Dayton assistant, Ostrom was a candidate to replace new Indiana men's basketball coach Archie Miller as Flyers coach. But he also knew Miller was holding a door open for him in Bloomington. Ostrom interviewed for the Dayton job and waited.

“Coach Miller was kind enough to really support me in that process, so I did that," Ostrom said. “Then he basically said, ‘Whatever happens, you have an opportunity to come to IU when the time is right.’”

Ostrom took Miller up on that offer just a few weeks ago, following Miller from Dayton after the Flyers hired Anthony Grant. An associate coach on Miller’s first three-man staff, Ostrom brings a promising pedigree to Bloomington as both a coach, and a force on the recruiting trail.

The subject of a 2014 Sports Illustrated profile, Ostrom rose from the AAU level to a job apprenticing under former Florida coach Billy Donovan. He was a key cog in the staffs that helped build Donovan’s national title-winning rosters in the mid-2000s.

“Nothing can duplicate, nothing replaced work,” Ostrom said, when asked what he learned from Donovan. “You put your head down and you treat people right. You surround yourself with passionate, loyal, bright people. You solicit their opinions and you work.”

Having helped Miller build his Dayton program, Ostrom said he sees similarities between IU’s new coach and Donovan, now coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“One of the similarities I'd say Archie and Billy have is they're deep thinkers,” Ostrom said. “There is no decision, big or small, that is a spur-of-the-moment (decision), like just go with it. It's not a whim decision. They both think, they both feel in their hearts, and they're usually right, if not always right.”

Ostrom has been instrumental in efforts to reach out to coaches around the state, and begin building relationships at the high school and AAU levels between those coaches and the new Indiana staff.

“The coaching in this state is unbelievable. It's as good as it gets,” Ostrom said, repeating a line Miller used at his introductory news conference. “You build kind of from the inside out, and you start in this great state with the great coaching and the great players. Did we hit every school in the state? Obviously, we didn't. But we tried our best to get to as many as we can, and we'll continue to do that.”

All three members of Miller’s new staff will be involved, and all three have strong ties to their new boss.

Ed Schilling coached under John Calipari, a longtime family friend, and Schilling stood as best man at Sean Miller’s wedding. Bruiser Flint has known the Miller family for years, having spent more than a decade coaching at Drexel in Philadelphia. He also coached under Calipari early in his career.

But Ostrom, who worked with Miller for so long at Dayton, might know his mind and methods best.

“He's unapologetically who he is every day,” Ostrom said. "The person you see is not different than the person I see, the players see, the person the donors see and the athletic director or the president. He is who he is. He's as genuine and as real as it gets.”